Udali Speaks

THE SPORTS-MAN...: URGENT: Jacques Kallis & AB de Villiers Cricket Sh...

2011-03-02T11:17:00.000+02:00

THE SPORTS-MAN...: URGENT: Jacques Kallis & AB de Villiers Cricket Sh...: "We have two GREAT South African pieces of Cricket memorabilia available - BOTH items, a Protea ODI top from Jacques Kallis (he played in i..."

Sheer Brilliance

2010-08-19T20:43:00.000+02:00

Great Expectations

2010-08-16T20:49:00.001+02:00

Life as we all know it can sometimes present itself as very complex cycle. From family, to friends, to lovers...we are all tied in one way or another in some sort of relationship. But as much as life has it's ups and downs, we can't let it get us down in anyway, but rather we should learn to tackle it as though we were in a survival situation coz think about it, life is like a jungle.

In survival school we learn to break down our situation into small bite size chunks and deal with them as individual tasks. This way the small victories we achieve boost our morale and keep us going on to the next one.

Mzilikazi wa Afrika and the Shape of Things to Come - Scary But A Brilliant Read

2010-08-06T17:08:00.001+02:00

We cannot imagine the fear, the gut-churning oily awful fear that gripped Mzilikazi wa Afrika when he was taken away on Wednesday. He says he thought he was going to be killed. An unmarked car, men with guns, refusing to listen to him, irrationally forceful and aggressive. Then the huge fight to keep him in their power. The 2:30 am interrogation. The questions about whether he was part of a group trying to destabilise the provincial ANC. Yes, the ANC, not the province or the country.

Kafka would have been proud of our officials. First, there’s the late-night high court application, the claim that it would be “too inconvenient” to release Wa Afrika when he was due in court just a few hours later. Really, what kind of a lawyer could ever say that? And which jack-booted hooligan tries to enforce this kind of nonsense? Then just a few hours later, Wa Afrika appears, at the appointed time in Regional Courtroom One in Nelspruit. And it’s just him, and his lawyers. The first person to burst through the door at 8:32am was actually a low-flying radio reporter. It was a little sad really, you expect huge drama, the Hawks ready to go and all you get are empty wooden benches.

Eventually, things started to move at around 9:15am, when Wa Afrika’s lawyer was compelled to stand up and explain that the whole show was going upstairs, to a packed Regional Courtroom Two. All the benches were taken up by Nelspruit residents there for the humdrum rape, murder and assault cases. The grumbling reporters, including Wa Afrika himself, were forced to lean on walls for support. When it did start, it was a blink-and-you’d’-have- missed-it affair. Bail agreed, conditions satisfactory to both parties, see you in November.

Outside the court a hostile crowd was growing. These were angry people, claiming that Wa Afrika was destabilising the ANC. They wanted to shout, scream and heckle; that job was done very well. Wa Afrika’s lawyer popped out to tell reporters not to worry, he’d be out soon to thank everyone for their support. The crowd didn’t like that. They were not there to support him. If they could, they’d bury him. His lawyer, Eric van den Berg, an old hand, read the crowd's mood and made sure his client didn’t have to go through all that.

But the crowd itself was fascinating. This reporter found himself having to count to 10 when told by one of its members that Wa Afrika was guilty of treason. The logic was this; Mabuza is a premier, therefore he’s like a governor, therefore if you take him on, you’re taking on the province. That’s right, ladies and gentleman. Nigeria, just three hours down the N4 from the heart of Johannesburg.

But this is the problem with the province in a nutshell. Leaders are conflating the province with themselves. They are the ones who must be served, not the people. They are the ones who must control. Everything. All of it.

So many questions after this week. Here’s just a flavour:

Who decided Wa Afrika should be arrested?

Was it a police officer?

Was it Bheki Cele?

David Mabuza?

Menzi Simelane?

All of the above?

Who really decided he should be charged? The moment this really passed into illegality was not at the time of the arrest, it was when a prosecutor decided on Thursday that there was no evidence to back up a case. Then the Hawks tell us there was “engagement”. Really? With whom? Was it Pretoria? Or Nelspruit? Who has the power to overrule a prosecutor? Simelane must have been involved, one way or another. And who was the one to phone him? It must have been Mabuza, or his representative. We’ve said it before this week, this is ANC deployment in action. This is what happens when a political party is not happy with just controlling all the political levers of power, but needs to control absolutely everything. And then when things go wrong, and that becomes public, kill the messenger. Why not. You’ll get away with it.

And that’s the sad, sorry story of Wa Afrika's arrest. That no one, not Mabuza, not Simelane and certainly not Cele will ever face any punishment for this. You know it and we know it.

This week has seen the cancer of Mpumalanga politics get a national face. We now all know there is something deeply wrong in the province. And that it’s only because this happened to a journalist from a paper with the nous and the money to do something about it that he’s free now. What would have happened if some swastika armband-wearing functionary had decided this was all classified and that the public doesn't need to know anything? And under the Protection of Information Act, many would have the power to do it.

And if that’s not scary enough, understand this. The symbol of today was not Wa Afrika walking free, or the angry misguided crowd outside the court. It was the Hawks officers who came into the court room in riot gear. With guns, tear-gas and those vests that bring the menace. And sun-glasses in a court room. It’s them, the foot soldiers who are going to claim one day that they were just following orders that will do the kicking pushing shoving hurting and perhaps killing. We need to know who really controls them. It’s certainly not the people of this country.

Shape of Things to Come indeed.

By Stephen Grootes

(Grootes is an Eyewitness News reporter)

Wyclef Jean To Run For President

2010-08-04T09:10:00.000+02:00

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Singer Wyclef Jean is about to announce his candidacy for president of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the former head of the country's Chamber of Deputies said Tuesday.
Former Deputy Pierre Eric Jean-Jacques told The Associated Press that the hip hop artist will run as part of his coalition in the Nov. 28 election.
Jean spokeswoman Cindy Tanenbaum declined to confirm the report. She said the singer planned to make an announcement Thursday night in Haiti but declined to say what it would be.
Jean-Jacques, who will be seeking to return to the Chamber of Deputies in the election, said he will be a candidate for a new coalition that calls itself Ansanm Nou Fo, which translates as "together we are strong" in Creole.
"Yes, we have an agreement (with Jean). But he's the one who has to announce it first," Jean-Jacques told AP, declining to elaborate on their political plans.
Jean is popular in Haiti for his music and for his work through his charity Yele Haiti, which raised millions of dolars after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people and knocked down most of the government ministries and many of the homes in the capital.
Rumors have swirled for months that Jean would run for president. The singer has always been careful not to rule out a run for the office and recorded a song "If I was President."
The 37-year-old was born outside Port-au-Prince but left as a child and grew up in Brooklyn.
Dozens of candidates are expected to compete for the presidency in the Nov. 28 election, among them Jean's uncle Raymond Joseph, who is Haiti's ambassador in Washington. Other likely candidates include former prime ministers, mayors and another popular Haitian musician, Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly.
All must register their candidancies with the country's electoral council by Saturday. The electoral council's director of registration, Jean-Marie Lumier, said Tuesday he had not received papers for Jean's bid.
Questions surround Jean's qualifications for office. He must prove he has resided in Haiti for five consecutive years, own property in the country and have no other citizenship but Haitian. Officials have disqualified some candidates on technicalities while allowing others to run.
In 2007, the singer was named an official Haitian ambassador-at-large by President Rene Preval, whom Jean supported in his 2006 re-election bid. Preval has served two non-consecutive terms and is barred by the constitution from seeking office again.
In recent weeks Jean's Twitter feed has been awash with original and re-tweeted demands for transparent elections, proposals for reducing Haiti's chronic poverty and calls to defend camps of the estimated 1.6 million people made homeless by the quake from forced eviction.
Reaction to his possible candidacy has been divided as Haitians debate the pluses and minues of his inexperience. The musician has a strikingly different profile than the generals, technocrats and priests who have led it before, speaking little French and Haitian Creole with a diaspora accent.
"I will give him my vote. All these people who have been in Haiti haven't done anything for us," said Jean Leuis, a 22-year-old bread vendor.
Bosejour Leconte, a 34-year-old phone card seller who has been living in a tent since the earthquake, thought otherwise.
"I don't think he has the qualifications to be president. I'd rather vote for someone that has political experience," he said.
Jean-Jacques and other politicians, including a senator from ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party — which is not expected to be allowed to participate in the election — formed the Ansanm Nou Fo coalition ahead of February elections that were canceled because of the earthquake.
Haiti's next president will face an enormous task of rebuilding a country devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake. But the office has never been an easy job: Presidents have only rarely completed a constitutional five-year term — most in history have been overthrown, assassinated, declared themselves "president-for-life" or some combination of the three.
___
Associated Press Writer Evens Sanon contributed to this report.

Deadmau5 Collapses Onstage

2010-08-03T14:34:00.003+02:00

Exhaustion is the reason being given for Deadmau5 collapsing Friday night during the final performance of a three night sold out run at the 9:30 Club in DC. .

The performer was nearly an hour into his set when he fell ill and collapsed.
Deadmau5 (whose real name is Joel Thomas Zimmerman) was taken to a nearby hospital by club medics where he now remains.

The Canadian DJ was forced to cancel several festival dates upon medical advice allowing him time to recover and hopes to reschedule.

Wallabies vs All Blacks - Drew Mitchell tackle on McCaw

2010-08-03T14:32:00.002+02:00

I know most people are still wondering why Drew Mitchell was sin-binned during the game seeing that there were no replays shown. Here it is.

Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture - ‘Thought Provoking’

2010-08-02T16:13:00.000+02:00

Guests who attended the eighth Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture have described the address was thought provoking.

The author Ariel Dorfman was chosen for this year’s flagship event on the Nelson Mandela Foundation calendar which aims to develop and sustain dialogue around Madiba’s legacy.

The former president’s family, world leaders and other important guests gathered at the Wits Education Campus for the speech on Saturday.

The literary grandmaster themed his lecture around memory, justice and reconciliation.

”Fear is our real enemy and its main victim is always trust. It is the central theme of this lecture that if we do not trust each other we shall all die,” he said.

The Argentine born novelist said there is no guarantee that deep reconciliation will ever be reached, adding some damage is irreparable.

But in times of despair, he holds on to the image of a garden saying the multiple, infinite gardens of Nelson Mandela and his people should be remembered.

(Edited by Deshnee Subramany)

Visualize Your Twitter Stream With IS Parade

2010-07-28T13:46:00.000+02:00

http://isparade.jp/

Twitter visualisations come in many forms, but IS Parade is arguably the most inventive yet.

Start a 'parade' of tweets across your csreen either by keyword, or by Twitter ID. Use your own Twitter ID and you'll see a parade of your own followers, which is a bit of an ego boost at least...

You can set up your own real-time parade by getting friends to tweet the same keyword, and then setting up a parade to follow it. Not the most fuctional Twitter tool yet, but it does draw you in. All done by a Japanese agency to promote Sharp's new IS series Android netbook/smartphone.

Courtesy of Jemima Kiss

Manchester United Launch New Kit

2010-07-26T11:13:00.000+02:00

Word Play With Wordle

2010-07-21T20:39:00.000+02:00

I just discovered this cool new site that pics all the common words from your rss enabled site and puts them on one cloud-like page format for users to explore. Try it out here http://www.wordle.net/

Recommended book: ==>

Keep Track Of Your Expenses Online

2010-07-21T14:41:00.001+02:00

I just signed up and http://1daylater.com is a very cool site for people always on the move but need to keep track of their finances.

Parade Day for Bafana Bafana in Sandton City, June 9, 2010

2010-07-13T23:24:00.000+02:00

The Special Friend

2010-07-12T21:56:00.004+02:00

As we all go through this journey called life, many things happen that change our perspective on how we deal...how we cope and handle things. We meet people, some we keep as friends for a long time, even maybe a lifetime, and others we pass on along the way. I've met the latter...a close good friend. But then again, a special friend.

Okay picture this, you are driving on the highway, bobbing your head to the cool morning jams when from a distance you hear this vibrating noise. So you turn down the stereo to get a better listen but just can't really pin where the sound is coming from...but you figure it sounds like a helicopter so you start to glimpse at the skies wondering how low the helicopter could be flying coz the sound just got louder. Then you decide just to pull over at the next garage only to realize the noise you were hearing was coming from your car. You had been driving on the highway all this time on a flat tyre. Hmmm...now you understand why passing cars were trying to wave you down. And here you thought they were just being friendly LOL.

Or when you start a new job in a new company, all excited and hyped up that at the end of the day you discover that you didn't make a mental note of where you parked your car. It's 17H30 and you are still pacing from basement to mezzanine, bay to bay looking for your car. Everyone's gone home and it's just you and the building security guards, so you do the only thing you can and that's ask the security guards to help you with the search.

Funny thing about these stories is that they happened to my friend...my special friend :). She never lacks some interesting adventure every week. It's like if I had to blog every story, every encounter she's had with the paranormal, I'd probably have 3 times the number of posts here. Hey either way, she still rocks.

Regards to my cuz Skips :)

Paper Pushing

2009-05-14T10:55:00.002+02:00

"Money makes the world go round"...or is it people that make the world go round. Funny how the 2 things that are significant in this world share the same fine line between happiness and grief. If I won the lottery tonight I'd no doubt be the happiest person in the world. Yes my goals are a bit different from most people's in that I'm the kind of person that always dreamed of building a children's home in my home city of Nairobi; basically give back to the development of my country. But all in all I would be happy to finally fulfill all those nitty-gritty things that have been pending for a while. But what if I didn't have any money? How miserable would I be...hence affecting everyone around me negatively and even probably committing some crimes just to get my way. At the end of the day, money and people greatly affect the way this world turns out and it's now become my duty to be a superhero :)

The Car Stereo

2009-02-16T07:42:00.003+02:00

This has been bothering me for a while now...how you would be driving down a familiar street, music loud enough for you to sing out of tune and no one would even notice, a smile on your face like everything is just working right...you're off to a friend's son's birthday party. This is where it gets weird...the moment you turn into unfamiliar territory and you pull out the visual display of the map in your head (coz men are too good to take down directions on paper), automatically you either turn off the car stereo or turn down the volume. What is it with being lost and music volume? It's as though it obstructs that patch in your brain that shows you the way...hmmmmm *ponders* is it just me or do you guys do that also?

The Elevator

2009-01-16T08:07:00.002+02:00

I find it very amusing whenever I get into a full elevator destined for the 16th floor, especially one full of strangers. There are 2 scenarios, the first being an elevator with a transparent door and the other without.

Transparent door scenario: The guys on the front row tend to look either down at their shoes or up at the top of the door. "Why" you ask? Well such a long ride would mean you either staring at some stranger behind you through the reflection, or checking out yourself...something most people don't do in public. I like to stand at the back and check out people's reactions. The dude next to me likes standing at the back so that he can check out the ladies...well...you know what I'm getting to. Funny though when all along the hot chic infront of him was checking him out checking her out through the reflection of the door. Hillarious when he notices he's been busted...HAHAHA :)

Non-transparent door scenario: Everyone looks everywhere...infront, at their shoes as well as the ones of the guy/lady next to them, at the lights...it's just chaos actually if you just stop to look at all the activity.

Manchester United Football Club

2009-01-14T14:41:00.008+02:00

Why is it that most people tend to dislike a winning team, complain about their arrogance, and just hate on the players? I'm a big Man Utd fan...have been since I was 12. I recall always being seated on my favorite couch at home in Kenya right next to my sister who was and still is a big Liverpool fan. We were the only 2 in our family that really followed footie.. especially the English league. Needless to say harsh words were often exchanged whenever the 2 sides met, eventually leading to a sibling silence for like a week if one team lost to the other. I must say though that it was always fun to spend sports quality time with my sister and i miss it dearly.

I think sports fans should be as graceful as my sister and accept defeat, or celebrate victory like sports fans. Nowadays people will support teams not for their love of the game, but either coz it has lots of imports in it, or coz it beat Man Utd on more than one occassion. Haterz will hate the fact that we have a dedicated long serving manager with loads of experience. They will even go out of their way, turn around and say that Sir Alex F. has the ear of the FA and the referees favor him. I say bollocks!!! Support your teams through thick and thin and don't just hate because we (Man Utd) play to WIN!

The Friend Zone

2008-12-22T17:45:00.003+02:00

Ever gone out on a rather casual date with a lady you really like, have a few laughs with her and for a min there you feel like you have found the lady you might just grow to love, wrap up the evening and walk her to her car, only to get cold feet later and just hug her instead of giving her that kiss that she's been longing for all evening? Well we all know what happens next right...you get put in the friend-zone and from that night onwards, you get refered to as a brother...lol. Guys, up your game and grow some kahunas please!!

The Ladies Man and His Friend (published whilst at the bar)

2008-12-19T17:40:00.005+02:00

Wierd how when u go out, you will always bump into the guy that all through the night has this one chic but will be occassionally seen with the random chic...touching her hand, stroking her lower back...A PLAYER! He loves the thrill of having to flirt secretly with another chic infront of his lady. That thrill that brings out the 'player skillz' that he would have to apply if ever he slipped up and had to make up a quick story for his lady inorder to patch things up with her. Kinda wrong I know, but hey it happens a lot. And just so y'all know, this is based on the male species because I'm a guy and would relate more to it this way. But the ladies also do this more than we could even imagine. I've had ladies hit on me and even slip me their numbers while their guys were on a bathroom break. Estoy viviendo la vida :)

A Winter Postmortem

2008-12-19T10:33:00.002+02:00

Long chilly nights, cold windy days...all that seems to set in round about June here in South Africa. This is when eating fruit becomes not only a mission but more painful to the teeth than an ice cone. Winter, when heat is generated in any way possible. Single ladies and men gather at the bar for a few glasses of whiskey before braving the long traffic infested drive home...in the cold, couples find warmth in each others arms thus the term 'Winter Babies' nine months later :). But all in all, winter seems to always bring out the love in people. New couples are generally formed at this time and trust me, it's easier picking up a lady in a crowded bar between June and September. But yet again winter relationships always end as fast as they started as soon as Spring kicks in.

I love the cold chilly nights and the hash windy days in Johannesburg and Cape Town. I always find that I sleep better in the cold, work harder and longer as I'm more focused, and even drink more beer before it finally kicks in...if ever :). All in all, life for me always seems more productive in the cold months of the cold season.

Disturbia

2008-12-18T12:20:00.000+02:00

Ever wonder why I do it...I mean, lead the simplest life, single and alone, bored sometimes but yet loving it? Well yah, me too. It always buffles me how I would really love to have someone to share my space at home, to cuddle infront of the tv while watching an episode of Boston Legal or 24, to cook and experiment recipes with. Sounds like an awesome place to be, but not in my world. I seem to have grown too fond of my time and space that I can't imagine anyone sharing that with me. I know it's a bit selfish of me but hey, who says I can't have hook-ups with the occassional lady, bump & grinds and one night stands, booty calls :) hahaha. I seem to want the company but yet again I dismiss that for the ultimate bachelor life. Anyway, I guess I haven't found that ONE yet...the ONE that would make me trash my black book and change my ways. But yet again, let's not be too quick to conclude that fact :).